


Out Of Luck

by RiverlyJulianet



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 23:22:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16377002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverlyJulianet/pseuds/RiverlyJulianet
Summary: It isn't as simple as unfortunate when every horrible things thrust upon Lance, leaving him nowhere to escape.





	Out Of Luck

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this one-shot when I came across the song named Sad Story (Out Of Luck) by Merk & Kremont. The song is wonderful, and you should give it a try if you haven't heard of it before. Anyway, for some reasons, I thought that the story told in this song suited Lance so well and I wanted to write my own version of Lance's sad story. So this fanfiction takes place in an alternate universe. 
> 
> I apologize for any mistakes in using vocabulary or grammar. 
> 
> I do not own the characters.

_ “Why are you crying?” He whispered to the old tree that was shading over him with its thick and green canopies. The leaves were shaking, creating a sad melody as wind blew by; and he could hear a silent cry. _

 

_ There was no answer, only the rustling sound echoed in the air. Lance didn’t need any answer, though. He already had one.  _

 

_ His breaths harmonized with the tree’s sighs, singing along with the autumn gust. _

 

Lance wakes up at a sudden warmth laid on his forehead, squinting his eyes the moment lights fill in his vision. He groans as someone squeaks gently above him, and he feels a hand offering help when he tries to sit up. Warm hand, bright light, female voice.

 

“Are you okay? Do you feel any better?”

 

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, and the shadow figure beside him becomes clear. A girl sits on the edge of his bed, blonde hair ties in a high ponytail, amber orbs overwhelm with naive emotions. She looks truly worried as she watches him, a shy one indeed, kind-hearted and too pure to be real.

 

Lance hugs a side of his head, realizes a dull ache throbbing his temples. 

 

“Are you hurt?” The girl’s meek and gentle voice is full of concern. She attempts reaching for him but lets her arm awkwardly hanging mid-air. “Um… Can I do anything to help? Ah, let me bring you some water.”

 

She quickly stands up and leaves for the door, returns just a few minutes later with a glass of water. Carefully offering it to Lance in both hands, she waits for him to take. “Here, you may feel better with some liquid.”

 

Lance gives her a strange look, he hasn’t said a word and doesn’t recognize her in the least. Worse, he can’t really recall how he ends up here and what has happened before that. The only thing he remembers prior to this is that he was standing on a cliff, watching the evilly bloody sun dyed the sky red as it set far at the horizon. He doesn’t trust her, innocent as she might look, because he trusts nobody. However, his dry throat screams for difference.

 

Lance hesitatingly grabs the glass, he eyes its content as if making sure there is no toxic or poisonous element. He was being poisoned once years ago, by a man claimed to be his friend, and certainly he’d sought that guy out to show him no mercy. He still remembers that guy’s shaking voice, begging, shouting, cursing, fading.

 

The girl besides him observes him with curiosity, probably wonders why he takes too long to drink a gulp of water, but she clearly keeps herself from spilling out questions. 

 

Lance downs half of liquid in one gulp, feeling his throat burns from satisfaction, and finishes the other half, leaving the glass empty. Without saying, he hands it back to the girl’s waiting hands before finally speaking his wild and throbbing mind. “What has happened?”

 

Poor girl jumps at the sheer cold of his vocal sound and the glass slips away from her weak grip, falling over and shattering on the wooden floor right by her feet. “Oh my!” She exclaims as instinctively steps backward, legs stumble and she also fall bottom-first. “Ouch!”

 

She is a messy lubber, Lance comments in his head, not even move an inch to do anything. He has that same old flat look, bored expression that speaks up nothing of his true feelings. He doesn’t care if this girl gets hurt, he wants to leave, back to his own place. He wants to be alone.

 

“Um… so sorry, I’m… I…” The blonde awkwardly hauls herself up, scratching her head as looking at the dangerously sharp glass pieces on the ground. “I’ll clean this up… Please wait, just a minute.”

 

Lance sighs and turns his eyes elsewhere, gazing emptily at nothing in particular. This room is quite small, warm and friendly in light yellow paint, decorated with luminous stars and moon sticking on the ceiling, and paintings and drawings are hung on walls. A window opens at the other end of the room, curtains are down but wind blows them to let rich orange sun rays spill inside. There is a bookshelf with few books, mostly family picture frames and decorative ornaments.

 

He hears sweeping sound, another “ouch” possibly because the girl cuts her hand while tidying up broken glass. He smells fresh air, one that is so green and moisture, one signifies a forest nearby. 

 

A forest? He was in a forest. Up a cliff that below was ragged rocks covered in moss, and vines, and bushes, and trees. There was nobody, no animals, no sound, nothing but plants and the ground where he was standing; and he was gazing the darkened crimson sky. And, he saw a vision - a dead man smiling at him; then there were shadows looming behind him.

 

“So… Umm, we found you in the forest. Unconscious and all wounded…” 

 

A strange voice snaps Lance out of his trance, and his eyes wide open in mere shock. He realizes drops of sweat trace down a side of his face and his shirt is clammy at the back. He turns to catch a pair of bright amber orbs curiously and meekly look at him.

 

“Are you alright? Are you feeling hot? Oh, I’m so sorry… How about… um… Let me turn on the fan…”

 

Lance doesn’t bother to explain, letting the girl do whatever she feels like to do. He takes a brief look at himself to see him  in someone’s clothes that is a little big for him, with his upper arms in bandages and there are small scratches and bruises where his bare skin is shown. 

 

_ I see,  _ Lance has regained his vague memories, all the intentions and obsessions he has been trying to escape from. Everything he wishes to forget, vivid like the pain shooting through his consciousness.

 

“Is it better?” The girl has come back next to his bed, but he gives her no heed. She seems not falter by his ignorance, though, and continues saying timidly. “Uh...May I know how to call you? My name’s Yellow, and my uncle Wilton is out to buy food for dinner. Ah, I wonder if you like some chicken porridge? Or you would like to have something else, maybe?”

 

The girl talks too much for his like, but Lance refrains from a deep frown. He considers answering her or just staying silent, waiting for a chance to stand up and get away as soon as possible. He feels suffocated being around humans, even more toward someone bright and cheerful like Yellow. Maybe she is faking it, he can’t tell.

 

“Do you hear me?” Seeing him so unresponsive, Yellow leans forward a bit to get a little closer to his face in order to catch his attention. “Can you tell me what your name is?... Oh, wait…” Lance doesn’t know what is going inside her head, but she puts a hand over her mouth as gaping and has a horrified look on her face. “Could it be possible that you… experience an amnesia? You forget about everything before even your name, and…Well, when we found you, your head did bleed badly…”

 

Okay, he is frustrated now. “Stop it,” he growls annoyedly. “I’m completely fine.”

 

Yellow seems shocked, again, but soon is recovered with a genuinely relieved look. She stutters. “Well, I’m so sorry. But, that’s good to hear that you feel good. Anyway… because you didn’t answer any of my questions, so I thought… It looked really painful, you know, your situation at the time…”

 

Lance gives the poor girl a deadly shut-up glare, which shuts her mouth up almost immediately the moment she receives it and Yellow nervously averts her eyes whilst her hand fidgets with a lock of her long blonde ponytail. She looks like she half wants to blurt more out but too afraid to do so, and half wants to escape the awkwardness through the door that is left ajar. He doesn’t mean to scare the wits out of her, though apparently he has done pretty much so, but just intends to ask her to stay quiet for his sake.

 

“Can you just… leave me alone for awhile?” He tries to ease down his usually harsh tone, and voices his raging thoughts as calmly and politely as he can manage. 

 

“...okay, then.” Yellow nods meekly, as she almost stumbles again when standing up and jogging over to the doorway so awkwardly. She stops while she pulls the wooden door open and casts a timid but heartful look at him. “If there’s anything you need, just… um… call my name. I’ll be just outside.”

 

Yellow then exits and the door clicks shut behind her.

 

_ “Now I have nowhere to go,” he smiles bitterly at a huge trunk of what used to be an ancient tree. Its wood has been exploited and delivered away before his return, no one told him about this and to be true, they didn’t have to. The area becomes uncomfortably empty, weak rays of winter sun brings about some blue and grey and the world suddenly is meaningless. It to him has already had no meanings from the beginning. _

 

_ Lance spares his old friend one last look before turning his back and starts walking. He hums some sad words, probably from a random song he has heard somewhere. “Now he don’t talk too much, he’s probably given up. I think he’s had enough, ‘cause he ran out of luck…” _

 

_ Out of luck, indeed. _

 

There are whispers and diluted noises from behind the door which Lance can’t really make out much, except for what is heard like his own name. Curiosity does it best on him so he inches out of the bed, throwing blanket that has been covering his legs aside and setting his bare feet down the hardwood floor. These injuries  _ are  _ hurt like hell when he moves, they aren’t this bad before. Therefore, he grits his teeth, a silent hiss escapes from his dry lips but that’s all. 

 

Lance takes some moments to feel his body, to stretch out his hardened muscles, and to familiarize with the pain. He must have been sleeping for at least a day. His legs wobble but he manages to get those weak legs stand properly until they become familiar with bearing his own weight.

 

He is about to walk to the door when it is swung open by a short, middle-aged man, following behind is that Yellow girl (she’s actually taller than the man, probably her relative - didn’t she talk something about her uncle? - despite her being petite also). The man is glancing over his shoulders to finish talking to her.

 

“...ask him to leave!”

 

“But, uncle!” Yellow exclaims, her voice shakes and uneasiness evidences in her tone. She halts in her track when she catches Lance standing right in front of them, so does her uncle.

 

Her uncle, (what is his name, again, he was a little spacing out to actually listen to Yellow’s babble), wears an expression that Lance reads afraid. He draws in a trembling deep breath as if trying to calm down after being shocked by Lance’s appearance. 

 

“Ahem,” the man coughs a little, steadies his voice. “Uh… I’m sorry but…”

 

Yellow suddenly pulls at his sleeve and walks past her uncle to turn and face him. “He’s badly injured!” She tries to reason.

 

“Not  _ that  _ bad.” Her uncle hisses quietly only for Yellow to hear, though with Lance’s keen ears he can hear fairly clear. “He’s standing!”

 

Lance stares dully at them, partly understands the whole situation and somehow has already expected something like this to happen. He wonders the cause, though. Have they known about his doings? Or do their instincts simply tell them about the anxiety and danger might occur having him in their house? 

 

Whatever, he doesn’t ask to be here in the first place. But the girl, Yellow, does her best to persuade her uncle to let him stay for at least another day despite his refrained frustration clear in his silent hiss. The man says something about how kindness is different from recklessness, and Lance is someone to be aware of. He’s right. But arguing in front of the face of the subject is not so wise.

 

Kind of funny, if he has the mood.

 

“I’ll leave.” Lance puts up a hand of his to cut in the family’s discussion, and obviously they are both so startled that finally remembering his existence in this very room. “Just don’t alert anyone else.”

 

The man looks at him strangely while Yellow gasps. “You can’t! It’s getting dark and there’s a forest out there. And with all those wounds of yours…”

 

“Quiet.” Lance breathes, low and dull. It feels uncanny being cared about by someone other than his cousin - the only family he has left, and it isn’t right. The migraine he is suffering becomes vivid, and he has the urge to throw up the acid in his empty stomach.

 

“Yellow,” the uncle steps before his niece with an arm stretches protectively. He eyes Lance intensively, having a wooden bat hidden behind his chubby body in his other hand, ready to act if anything were to happen. However, having a closer look, he is actually shaking a little but his sturdy voice shows no evidence of that. What an effort. “We sorry, but, you know, please be generous and leave us alone. I’m begging you. I don’t want any trouble for my family...”

 

This is stupid. But Lance appreciates them for their pure kindness willing to help a stranger found inside a wild forest no less, and they don’t call anyone to announce his appearance just yet. Probably. He hopes so. It would be kind of a nuisance if they, more like the uncle, did. He sighs and wonders, a monster is he? 

 

A monster he is. From when? He doesn’t quite remember. It’s been long and harsh, the reality. 

 

_ He is looking at the woman’s face fitting inside an elaborate square wooden box, white flowers rise around, framing her oval face that is grey of death. Her eyes shut, but he always sees those brown irises widened horrifiedly, hauntingly direct to him.  _

 

_ “I didn’t do anything!” He screams to the head. “I didn’t…” he sobs. “Don’t look at me like that!” _

 

_ The newspapers is concerning a horrific case happened in the middle of the city. A family - husband, wife and a lone son, was found inside their house among a vomitive scene. Two heavily burnt bodies, one was headless, stuck inside the fireplace, flame ate through the flesh and showed smeared bones; another was not far away, dipped in gasoline before he started the fire himself. The severed head of the first body, a woman, the mother, laid at the son’s feet, who was still awake but completely traumatized with his knees pulled to his chest, shaking.  _

 

_ His grandfather comes to him, gives him a place to grow up; but home, will he ever call that place. He tells nobody because there is no one cares, neither listens; he stays silent and complies whatever he is told. Until one day he sees no necessity in doing so. _

 

_ “Impious?” Lance smirks, frigidity covers his darkest amber orbs and ice stains his voice. “You create this yourself. It’s time to pay for your own sin, dear grandfather.” _

 

_ If it hasn’t for his cousin, young and pure, full of untainted righteousness and mightiness, jumping in between with her arms fully stretch, that old man would be gone for sure. She saves their grandfather, and in truth, she has saved him, too. _

 

_ Dear, the wind laughs at him as he leaves. Never to return.  _

 

_ Yet, fate likes playing around, throwing him from this pit to another and kicking him off any ladder that leads him out. He cannot erase the existence of the demon within him, so he lives with it. _

 

_ He stumbles times from times in his aimless journey into where he is shunned by society. Hallucinations of a peaceful life, is he having when something happens. His ego is deeply wounded, therefore he shows no mercy. Therefore, the demon snickers. Therefore, blood splatters before he can stop himself. _

 

It’s been quite a way he has gone, but the trees look the same everywhere he lays his eyes on. 

 

Lance leans on a trunk for support, the headache has not yet showed any reduction and his injuries, though comparatively minor, are stinging like hell. The dusk feels blacker under those thick canopies; thin veil of grey mist begins to spill as temperature gradually drops. He inhales a big gulp of refreshing air, distracting his mind from gloomy images about a life he wishes to have never been existed. 

 

His foot is caught by vines so he stumbles forward, nearly falls over and hits his face into the mushy ground. He balances with the help of a random branch in his reach, which snaps almost immediately the moment it hoists up his weight. Lance swears under his breath, does not know what to do or where to go besides distancing himself from that protective uncle and his naive niece. 

 

Probably he should go to the police?

 

Probably he should get lost in this forest?

 

Probably he should finish what he intended to do but has failed?

 

Probably…

 

“Hey,” a voice calls after him, follows by rustles. Lance doesn’t need to turn to know who it is. Somehow, her voice, Yellow’s voice becomes scarily familiar. Her blonde hair is warm and her smile is bright, like the sun she is. 

 

“ _ Don’t  _ do that again!” She shouts, as firm as her sweet and tired vocal can manage. 

 

Lance has the urge to spat in her face ‘what do you mean?’ and ‘why the hell are you following me?’; however, he has the answers already. Annoying girl, he clicks his tongue.

 

“You…” Yellow tries to catch up her breath. “Don’t… There’re lots of beautiful things  waiting for you!”

 

Like what?

 

“Don’t just because of a terrible present that you give up your whole life.” She finishes at a good distance away from him. At least that girl still has some brain to keep her guard up.

 

Lance gives Yellow a blank look over his shoulder. Hunger and tiredness have consumed most of his left over energy and all he wants to do is collapse right now and right here, to just gaze at the stars peeking through dense leaves, listen to the sound of wilderness, sniffing the thick greeneries air, let anything should happen be happened. He keeps an arm on a nearby tree, while considers does it worth to give the girl a reply.

 

No, it doesn’t. A person like her can never understand, nor even imagine. It isn’t her fault, though.

 

He musters strength to speak out the only phrase he thinks of, leeks with venom. “Fuck-off.” And he does expect the girl to grimace and step back.

 

So as Lance hears the sound of snapped branches, he unconsciously lets his body drop to the earthy surface. He misses the old tree, the only friend that listens to his miseries, being chopped when he was away - being killed, and died. Gone forever. Like his mother, father, like that  _ man _ .

 

“This is not good,” Yellow since when has hovered over him. “You have a fever,” she puts a hand onto his forehead, gentle, and immediately draws it back. The girl looks around, all darkness. “C’mon, I need to take you back.”

 

Her uncle has just begged him to leave, and now she suggests coming back? What is she? An idiot?

 

_ Unhappy - grief _

 

_ Loss - pain _

 

_ Misfortune - lost _

 

_ Red - blood - his hair color, born with it; his eyes after nights restless and silently cry; his hands whenever he hears a mocking laughter that destiny slaps into his face. _

 

_ When Lance’s consciousness slips away, replaced by anger, rage, hatred, all the darkest feelings that have been piling up in his soul... _

 

_ When Lance laughs while tears shedding… _

 

_ He laughs in bitterness which is so distasteful, searingly painful yet coldly wonted. _

 

Lance smirks weakly. He desires to avenge this world, but he is too small, too insignificant, too powerless; so instead, he wishes to be ignored by the world, to erase his existence. A coward who only knows of running and hiding, he doesn’t care. He cares not what people think of him, why would he when they don’t once  _ see _ him. 

 

He opens his palms, and closes them. Open, and close. Dirty. Dark. Wet. Irony. 

 

His vision blurs.

 

-End-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
